Photoshop.

[JamesMarsters]

I've just descovered Phtoshop 7.0 I do ok with it. But like for lighting, keeping a steedy hand. I have trouble. My lines are always, crooked. Instead of making the hair have lighter and darker area because of the light. I just color the whole thing one color. Could comeone give me some tips or something. Maybe even tell me some tricks. ?? PLease

[Rindi_chan]

Hey cool, I use PS7 too. ^^ After a lot of practice, I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that drawing straight lines on the computer is just plain hard. If you need straight lines for something, try checking out the 'shape' tool. The shortcut to get to it is hitting the 'u' button on your keyboard. You can also try vectoring by making paths with the pen tool. Fun stuff, but kind of hard to get the hang of.

For shading though, you don't necessarily need straight lines. Curved lines can actually help to add realism... Well, it all depends on what you're doing. When you talk about shading with light and dark and straight lines, that sounds like cel-shading to me. I don't do that because I go for a more soft/gradual sort of shading, but I'd suggest that you check out the dodge and burn tools. Can't remember the exact shortcut - might be 'o' or 'j'... I don't use them that much anymore, but they are good for darkening and lightening colored areas. Burn will darken (effect is best seen when your brush color is set to black) and the tool looks like a pointing hand, and dodge will lighten (effect is best seen when your brush color is set to white), and the tool looks like a circle with a line sticking out of it. You can't see both tools at once - right-click on one to select the other.

I tend to just airbrush colors straight on top of one another to get a shaded effect - darker colors for shadows and lighter colors for highlights. I also find it helpful to work with layers so that I can concentrate on, say, the hair, without worrying about whether I'm going to mess up the skin that I've already spent a while shading. I can definitely talk more about layers if you don't understand what I'm talking about. They can be confusing, especially if you're just getting started with PS.

Good luck. If you have more questions (and I'm sure you will), then don't hesitate to ask.

[JamesMarsters]

OK. Tell me about layering. That's sounds interesting.

[Rindi_chan]

Ohhhhhkay.... *takes a deep breath* Here is Rindi's quick and dirty guide to getting used to layers. Beware of imminent suckage. I hope it's not too hard to read.

[b]What is a layer?[/b]

Layers are great. They are just like a bunch of transparency sheets (you know, those things the teacher puts on the overhead projecter and then writes on with pretty pens and stuff XD). You can draw on a layer without disturbing anything that's on other layers. You can also shuffle them around, ie. taking a layer from the bottom and moving it up to the top, which lets you show/hide different parts of your picture.

[b]Layering 'tools'[/b]

Search around in PS - there is should be a layer menu box in there somewhere. It's kind of like the toolbar, only it's labed as 'layers'. If it's not already lying around in your workspace, various toolbars are kept in the upper right corner (they look like a set of tabs). You might have to use the 'View' menu bar option to find the layers window. If you start a new project, the layer window will contain just one layer - the 'background'. You can add and delete layers through the options at the bottom of the layer box - check out the icons that look like a stack of pages, or a little trash can (there are also options for layers in the menu bar, but I prefer working in the box). Click on the stack of pages icon to make a new layer - you should see a new layer show up in the layers box. Unlike the background, this new layer should be transparent. That's good, because it'll let you see through to lower layers - a white or fully colored layer will hide anything behind it. Think about layering transparency sheets and construction paper.

As a quick hint right now, don't draw on the background layer - save it for your background. Since the background is white, if you try to move it up in front of other layers, you won't see anything lying under it. You also won't be able to add colors on an underlying layer - I've drawn lineart on a background layer before, and it's annoying to fix.

Another starting hint. Each layer in the layer box has an open eye off to the left. That means the layer is visible. Clicking on an open eye will shut it, thus turning the layer invisible. Clicking a shut eye will open it again. If you do it with an empty layer, you won't see anything happen, but if you try hiding the background layer, you should see it disappear. Keep this in mind - you can fiddle around with it later, when you actually have a drawing to work with.

[b]First step: drawing on a single layer[/b]

Try drawing on a layer. Click on a layer in the layer box to select it (depending on which layer is highlighted in the layering box, that's the layer that you're drawing on - selecting the background means that you're drawing on the background layer, selecting Layer 1 means you're drawing on Layer 1, etc.). Fool around with the brushes and stuff. Change your colors around, and note how when you draw a black line, and then a red line on top of it (arbitrary colors, shh), the two are hopelessly intermingled. There's no way for you to move the red line without moving the black line. No way to erase parts of the red line to have the black line show through. Okay, time to start working with multiple layers!

[b]Second step: experimenting with multiple layers[/b]

Start over, or erase everything, and get yourself two transparent layers. Again, I'm using arbitrary colors. Draw a black line on the lower transparent layer (the one closer to the background - the one closer to the bottom of the layer list). Select the second transparent layer and draw a red line on that one, overlapping with the black one. Doesn't have to be exact. In fact, it's probably better if they're not exactly overlapping. Make two different squiggles or something.

Here's the fun part - the two are completely seperate! Use the move tool ('v' on the keyboard) to move the layer with the red line around - the black line won't budge because it's on a different layer. You'll also notice that when the red line is on top of the black line, any overlapped black part is hidden by the red. Two different sheets of paper, if you will. Set the red line to partially overlap the black line and use the eraser tool to erase the overlapped part. The red will be erased, but the black will show through underneath.

One last thing to try - over in the layer window, grab the upper layer with the red line, and move it underneath the layer with the black line (so it's sandwiched between the black-line and background layers). This is just like swapping two overhead transparencies - the one underneath will show up better, and the one underneath will be partially hidden by the upper layer. Try moving your red-line layer around again - you'll notice that this time, the black line is on top of the red line.

[b]Step the third: A basic picture[/b]

Okay, so I hope I didn't lose you too much there, and I hope you're getting an idea of the power of layers. There are plenty of things you can do with them, but I'll finish with something basic for now. Get back to having two blank layers, and draw a quick doodle on the top one. A smiley face will do.

Now, how to color it in? If you only had one layer, you'd have to color in between the lines, being careful not to color over the facial features. You might use the magic wand and flood fill options. You'd probably end up with bits of white around the edges.

For a nicer coloring effect, you can opt to color on the lower layer. Go ahead - pick a color, and color in the smiley face, but do it on the lower transparent layer, not your lineart layer. If you go outside of the lines by accident, that's fine. Use the eraser to get rid of outlying color. Since it's on a different layer from the lineart, you don't have to worry about accidentally erasing part of your drawing. Try painting the background blue when you're done. Since I have no imagination, I'd end up with a yellow smiley face with a black outline kinda floating on a blue background. The whole picture would be spread across three layers. You can probably imagine continuing along a similar line in order to add more colors with more layers. Over the course of a complex picture, I end up using dozens and dozens of layers.

[b]Fourthly: linking layers[/b]

Ahh! One last thing. I swear this is it for now. What if you didn't like the location of your drawing? What if you'd rather have the smiley face sitting at the bottom of the page? You could drag the lineart to the bottom of the page, but then the colored part would still be floating in the air.

Well, you could merge your layers, but you probably don't want to do that unless you're certain that you're done with all your coloring and shading. A good option is to link your layers. Remember the visible/invisibility option I was talking about up in the intro? To the right of each layer's 'eye', there should be a little box. The selected layer's box will contain a paintbrush (I think), indicating that that's the layer that you're currently working with. Inactive layers will have an empty box. If you click on a layer's empty box, a little chain link will appear. That means that it's linked to the current working layer. You move the working layer, and you'll move any linked layers at the same time.

Try it out: select the smiley face lineart as your working layer, and link the colored layer to it. Then, use the movement tool to move the lineart layer around the page. The colored part should move with it. If you ever want to unlink the layers, click the chain link and it will disappear. This is very useful if you want to move various layers around on your canvas while keeping them together.

[b]In conclusion[/b]

Hm. This would've been easier with illustrations, no? Apologies for typing that all out. I hope it made sense. I'll bet there are 10,000 tutorials on layers out there, but I didn't feel like tracking them down. x_x;

Let me know if that made no sense at all.

[fallenangel]

Straight lines in photoshop: Choose the brush you want, click at the beginning of the line, hold shift, click at the end of where you want the line to be. It'll make a straight line between those two points.

Or use the line tool, but I think holding shift is easier.

Steady curved lines takes practice. Just keep working at it, and your lines will get smoother.
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"I care about people as much as I care about lawn furniture" - Dexter/Michael C. Hall

[Hybrid]

Learn to use the free-form pen tool. have a sketch under it. trace the lines as close as you can. after you're done, it may seem a little lopsided, depending on how steady your hand is. The trick is to find and click on as many of the 'squares' that you find along the line. this will delete them. Delete as many as you can without the line losing it's shape. it will create a new layer. on the background, make a new layer under the pen layer. This layer will be used for coloring. the pen layer is treated as a shape, so you can't alter it with tools.



By the way, my other computer just died. anyone know were i can get a trial version of photoshop?

[Hybrid]

...i'm lost there. i've never made a bg before.

so were [i]do[/i] i get the photoshop trial?

[Rindi_chan]

Maybe it's better to ignore the background layer and just do the background on another transparent layer. ^^;

[quote="Animemaster2334 (Lindsay)"]But, I still have yet to learn how to make the bg of a pic different from the actual art...[/quote]

Do you mean like scanning in a picture and adding a different background to it? :huh:

[Rindi_chan]

Ah, I think I get what you're saying. I think you could try it like this:

1. Use the lasso tool to select what you want to cut out from picture #1.
2. Cut the selected part out with ctrl-x
3. Open up the picture #2, the picture you want to paste #1 onto...
4. Create a new layer on top of picture #2, and make sure that's your working layer.
5. Paste picture #1 onto the new layer.

You should be able to move picture #1 around without disturbing picture #2 because now they're on two different layers. Like two different sheets of paper. As an alternative, you could cut and paste the entirety of picture #1 onto a new layer on top of picture #2, and erase out the parts that you don't want to keep.

[Rindi_chan]

Your developing Photoshop skillz both amuse and disturb me. XD

[Rindi_chan]

Ah... Tablets. *_* A quick search on Google turned up this.

A tablet is actually hardware, not software. It consists of a drawing pad that you hook up to your computer, and an electronic 'pen'. You can use it to draw/paint on the computer - I think it's what many professional CG artists use. Of course, you don't have to use a tablet just for artwork, but that's what I use mine for.

My laptop has a touchpad, which I absolutely cannot draw with. I get no control whatsover. I also have a hard time using a mouse. With my tablet, however, it's a lot like drawing with a pen on a sheet of paper, so I have much more control over my work. I'm still not very good at it - it's definitely different from working with pencil and paper - but I'm getting better with practice.

By drawing everything directly onto the computer, I can avoid needing a scanner - that's why all the pictures I've uploaded recently have been CGed. ^^

[Rindi_chan]

Haha, touchpads fail. If you're interested in getting a tablet, definitely do your research first. They come in lots of different sizes (and prices!), and there are lots of brands out there. It's generally agreed that Wacom makes the best tablets - my sister got one last year and she loves it to death. She gave me her old hand-me-down tablet, and after a few issues with the configuration, it works just fine for me. Could be better, as it's very slightly broken, but it gets the job done, so whatever. I'm not a terribly serious artist anyway (or at least, not as serious on the CG end as my sister).

[Rindi_chan]

at that picture of Raos.

Just keep in mind that having a tablet won't suddenly turn you into an amazing artist. I kind of hoped that would happen, even though everything I read indicated otherwise. I was actually so dispirited by my initial suckiness that I used the tablet simply for coloring pictures and erasing dirty lines on my scanned artwork for nearly a year. I only started drawing in earnest with it around May, and I still have a long long way to go. Of course, being stuck without a scanner has forced me to try to conquer the tablet in order to be able to upload pictures to FAC.

[Lizkay]

if you adjust your Photoshop Edition together with your tablet, and you have a bit of skill and training with it you will never need a scanner again. Photoshop (6,7,CS and CS2) works with active brushes, which means you can create a Background, for example a wood, just using different brushes. You can create a brush for different leaves, for whole treetops, for branches, and textrues, for example, I have a texture for a branch, I make a soft brush out of it, using the adjusted Tablet I can make a very nice tree with it, just using the different strenght of the pen-tablet pressure, press hard for the thick treetrunk and more softer for the branches, take the leaves brush and give it the airbrush setting, give the brush a color managment, and you will create 5 leaves with 5 colors just pressing your mouse or tabletpen once! You can paint a whole wood like that, just playing around with brushes and pressure types. Photoshop has also nice layer-modes, for example, "lighting" "Screen" or "overlay" will give you nice effects, just try

okies.. talked enough stuff.
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- hmm... did someone say "MUFFIN"? -

[Fayore]

I've used a little bit of Photoshop... I'm more of a PSP user myself, but that's more because I have really limited space on the computer, and PSP is much, much smaller than PS. =_=;

As for cutting an image out and pasting it on to another background... I usually make the character art and the background art seperately (if I even bother making a bg), so I just mess around with the layer settings until they look nice together. Hm. The layer modes I use the most often would have to be burn and multiply. ^^; Although the other ones get a fair bit of exersize, too (except the disintegrate one. That one is ugly. ).

Ugh. A tablet. I've wanted one for so long because I have limited access to a scanner. =_=; And I've also wanted one because it saves me the effort of having to clean and edit scanned stuff. :/ I've done decent mouse art, but a tablet would be infinitely easier for me. *sigh* Unfortunately, I am poor with no job. And my parents wouldn't buy stuff like that for me. :/ Thinking of working at McD's, but I digress...


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[flcladd1ct]

Ooh! Ooh!
Go here! This starts out with really basic flatcolor, you can go to the next step on a link below the tutorial.

[Shiloh]

Eh, ive got some troubles with PS7 also, I hope that LONG layer tip helps.
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